Originally Posted by
bashermax
we're raising a generation of morons who can't tie their shoes since the invetion of velcro, can't read a book, can't add, subtract multiply, divide w/o a calculator.
Far as I can tell, stupidity has been around a long time. T'was a time when 20 percent literacy in a population was outstanding. You know, before the printing press. Some generation lamented that these newfangled kids can't get across the country without a train. "What, horse and carriage too good for you?"
Originally Posted by
Batman_3000
For example, what use is a gameboy when the lights go out ? Will a gameboy grow cabbage for you ? Will the gameboy fix your carbon bicycle ? There is a generailzed (not total, a general tendancy) loss of survival skills which we are noticing. And no doubt our elders noted that in us. As to education, there is no arguing that the level required to achieve any given diploma has dropped incredibly : I know a load (the overwhelming majority) of "kids" who are all but functionally illiterate but still get schooled to 20. If you tell me that you personally are not among the "upper tier" in terms of litteracy and "IQ" , I'll believe you. Is this what you are saying ? Anyway, how many of you kids know how to repair a bicycle with a cabbage ?
Originally Posted by
jtgotsjets
It's not as though teenagers are out there dying in herds because of a power outage.
If it was a long enough outage they would be. But older generations would be dying too. Its not like you grow a cabbage with your Grand Torino. You have to go back more than 100 years for a generation familiar with a subsistence lifestyle. We've been using fridges for as long as anyone on this board has been alive.
My point: stupidity-wise, all the generations here are probably equally stupid, or smart, however you want to look at it. We can debate over whether generations of previous eras that subsisted on what they grew were smarter or wiser than us, but my suspicion is that any generation in Western culture has had some stupidity bug. Course we're brilliant as well, tower of Babel, etc., that's another conversation.